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United States Patent | 6,040,844 |
Yamaguchi ,   et al. | March 21, 2000 |
A system for mapping texture data at high speed with flexibility to different applications wherein texture data is sent to a memory interface (MEMIF) thorough a digital differential analyzer (DDA) and a texture mapping unit (TMAP) and loaded to free areas of a Z coordinatory memory (ZBUF) and a drawing data memory (FBUF). A Z coordinate value or drawing data is read/written through a bidirectional port. The TMAP converts texture coordinates into a physical address, reads texture data from dedicated read ports of the ZBUF and the FBUF with the physical address, and maps the texture data. Each of the ZBUF and the FBUF has a DRAM unit and an auxiliary memory. Data of one row of the DRAM unit can be sent to the auxiliary memory means at a time. When desired texture data is not present in the auxiliary memory, data of the entire row of the desired texture data is sent to the auxiliary memory and then read.
Inventors: | Yamaguchi; Yuji (Tokyo, JP); Yoshimori; Masaharu (Tokyo, JP); Ozawa; Hiroyuki (Tokyo, JP); Iida; Ryohei (Tokyo, JP); Taniguchi; Kazuo (Kanagawa, JP) |
Assignee: | Sony Corporation (Tokyo, JP) |
Appl. No.: | 899925 |
Filed: | July 24, 1997 |
Jul 31, 1996[JP] | 8-217774 |
Current U.S. Class: | 345/538; 345/422; 345/531; 345/554; 345/571; 345/582 |
Intern'l Class: | G06F 012/06 |
Field of Search: | 345/518,507,513,430,422,515,521 711/149 365/230.05,189.05 |
4639890 | Jan., 1987 | Heilveil et al. | 345/515. |
5550961 | Aug., 1996 | Chimoto | 345/433. |
5694560 | Dec., 1997 | Uya et al. | 345/518. |
5706481 | Jan., 1998 | Hannah et al. | 345/519. |
5818765 | Oct., 1998 | Taniguchi et al. | 365/189. |